Cricket Teams-An Overview

A cricket team is a precious asset to any nation. The game of cricket is equally loved by children as well as elders. Traditionally, cricket is England’s national game. But over time, this game has achieved international status. The cricket teams represent their respective countries on both national and international tournaments. All the nations feel proud of their cricket teams and consider the players of the team as heroes escalating their national glory. The game of cricket serves to unite the whole nation magically and evokes stronger sense of patriotism whenever the team comes in the ground to perform and confront their opponents. In this game couple of teams arrives in the ground to compete each other with bat, balls and wickets. Each cricket team consists of eleven players. One team performs bating while the other rests on bowling. With the beginning of second round the batting team takes the bowling team position and vice versa. This is currently the game having world-wide popularity.

Among world’s renowned cricket teams are Pakistani, Australian, Sri Lankan, Indian, and West Indian & South African teams. However, a number of other teams have been performing in the cricket world cup until now. So far, total 19 teams have accomplished in the world cup once at least. Out of these 19 teams, 7 teams participated in each competition and only 5 managed to win. The West-Indian was the team to won first two cups for it while Pakistan & Sri Lanka captured one each. Australia won it four times in 1987, 1999, 2003 & 2007. India also won world cup couple of times.

Every team holds some distinctive achievements rendered while performing in world cup in different time periods. However, among all these winning teams, Australia and West Indies attained distinctive positions by capturing consecutive titles- Australia (1999, 2003 & 2007) and West Indies (1975 & 1979). Kenya is among the farthest Non-Test playing national teams that have the credit to reach in the semi-final in 2003. In the same way, in 2011 India was the first host-country being successful in achieving the world cup on the home-ground. Another hosting country reaching the final match at their homeland is the England. Although Pakistan reached semifinals many times after the first glorious world cup victory, but couldn’t manage to play in the finals again.

According to the current ranking of the teams; South Africa, Australia, England, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and India had been successful in making their place among top 6 high- performing teams in Tests & ODIs. On the other hand, West Indies achieved second position in twenty-twenty championship rankings while Sri-Lanka remains at top in this twenty-twenty ranking. The ratings keep on changing depending upon the team’s participation in matches and its performance. Cricket is for sure a lovely game. No matter whether a team wins or loses, the match leaves various memorable and special moments to remember and cherish. This game is improving day by day and its future would be even brighter than ever definitely.